Thursday, December 6, 2018

Arkansas "Cabbage Patch Riots" at center of new HBO series

Christmas Eve riots in small town Arkansas circa 1983 are the source material for “The Dolls,” a limited series in development for HBO. The series comes from Jaywalker Pictures, a film production company spearheaded by Emmy-winning actor Laura Dern and producer Jayme Lemons, a native of Waldron.

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Laura Dern (left) and Jayme Lemons (right)

Issa Rae, creator of HBO’s heralded “Insecure” and author of New York Times bestseller “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” will star alongside Dern. Rae will co-write the project with Laura Kittrell and Amy Aniobi, Rae’s co-writers on “Insecure,” just greenlighted for a fourth season.

The so-called “Cabbage Patch Riots” were sparked when holiday shoppers clamoring to buy Cabbage Patch Dolls clashed in retail stores across the country. The dolls were under tremendous demand and in short supply that winter. Against that backdrop, Variety reports, the series “explores class, race, privilege and what it takes to be a ‘good mother.’ ” Jaywalker Pictures is also in development with another Arkansas-connected project: “The Dog of the South,” a film adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, screenwritten by Graham Gordy and Jay Jennings.

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